“The flaming and smoking remains of the bomb that almost killed my sister are outside, deputy,” Cade said, his voice even. “I would assume that’s where you should be doing your job.” His stare was scary, even from my position on the sofa.
I winced at the dabbing against my head.
“Sorry, baby,” Gabriel.
“Shh.” I waved my hand at him, my eyes on the stare off.
“Did you just shush me?” he asked.
I ignored him.
“I’m right where I need to be, Fletcher,” Luke gritted out, though he didn’t return the death stare. His eyes were focused on Rosie, the look similar to the one in Gabriel’s eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked her, as if he didn’t have a six-foot biker all up in his face.
She nodded.
Luke didn’t seem satisfied but gave Cade his attention anyway, his expression changing in an instant. “I see the story of you going ‘legit’ was a total pack of fuckin’ lies. What did you do now to put your own flesh and blood in danger?” he spat. “That’s low, even for you.”
You could taste the change to the air. “Careful, Deputy,” Cade warned. “You’re getting very fuckin’ close to sayin’ somethin’ you might regret.”
“You threatening me?”
Cade’s stare was even. “Yeah. If you keep talkin’ shit ’bout my family, my club, lookin’ at my sister in a way that isn’t professional, you bet your ass I am.”
Luke moved his glare to Rosie once more. “She’s comin’ with me,” he declared.
Cade’s jaw went granite, and Brock and the one everyone called Dwayne stepped forward.
“No, she’s fuckin’ not,” Cade replied.
“She needs a hospital,” Luke argued. His eyes went to me. “So does Bex.”
Gabriel and I stiffened at the same time. I put my hand on his to make sure he didn’t bite the cop’s leg or something.
“I don’t do hospitals, Captain America,” I informed him. “They mess with my complexion. Plus, the nurses here are way hotter.” I moved my eyes to Gabriel, whose eyes were granite.
Luke’s jaw went hard as he realized he was not going to win this one. “None of you go anywhere,” he growled. “I’m gonna want statements from fuckin’ all of you.” He gave Rosie one more stare and turned on his heel.
My mind was so focused on what was going on between the two of them that the memory took me by surprise, it having taken a while for me to get all my thought processes back.
“This is my fault,” I whispered.
Gabriel froze. “No, it’s fuckin’ not.”
“Yes, it is. I knew about what was going to happen because I was warned. Or threatened,” I said, my voice low. “It was Dylan. He called me and said this was payback. This. So it’s my fault.”
The air, which had already been bitter, turned rancid at my words. Cade and Brock both focused on me.
“That fucker called you,” Gabriel bit out, the hand at my forehead shaking with rage.
Cade put his hand on his shoulder. “Easy, brother. How about you take care of your bleeding woman. Then we work on the other shit.”
Gabriel was still for a moment, his eyes on me but not really seeing me. Not the me in front of me, anyway. I had a feeling he was seeing the me in that room. He shook himself and he was back here, nodding once and setting to work. Not before clasping my chin in his hands and bringing our foreheads together. “This is not your fuckin’ fault, Becky. None of it,” he promised.
He waited for my nod before he continued his first aid in silence.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“She who walks the floors of Hell finds the key to the gates of her own Heaven, buried there like a seed.”
-“Underworld”, Segovia Amil
Gabriel patched me up.
Then I was questioned relentlessly by Luke and the sheriff about the explosion. I’d grown up with a distrust of law enforcement, even the hot ones, so I lied my effing ass off.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Captain,” I said sweetly. “I was walking, minding my own business, and then the car went boom.” I shrugged.
I knew the men approved of my story since the corner of Cade’s mouth turned up and Brock full-on grinned. Gabriel’s granite expression didn’t move, nor did his grip on my hand which was bordering on painful. The sheriff, a balding, older, and very tired-looking man, had eventually put his hand on Cade’s shoulder talked in hushed tones and then literally dragged Luke off the premises. I was guessing Cade had the older one on payroll.
That was totally dope.
I wondered if we could figure out a way to get me off my parking tickets.
I didn’t get to ask because I was spirited away to biker church, which had no crucifixes in sight, only a grim reaper etched into the long table. Very apt.
Then I recounted my phone call, word for word, to the room of grim-faced bikers. They’d all stared at me in varying degrees of fury.